Elements of Temporal Proximity
by Bionically
Summary: Drabbles and oneshots, mostly of the Dramione kind, from prompts on Tumblr. By and large, each will be under 5k.
1. So Fucking Hot

Prompt from Sarena: "You're so fucking hot when you're mad."

Word count: 740

* * *

"And another thing! It's completely incomprehensible that they don't want to further the goals of international relations!"

Granger's voice had steadily climbed into a shout that was almost shrill. She had been pacing back and forth in front of Draco, one hand on her hip, the other one gesturing and slashing at the air in front of her. Her eyes were flashing with barely controlled ire, and her chest was rising up and down. He couldn't help but admire how her anger transformed her appearance: her cheeks were flushed, her lips were red, and her hair was a wild, riotous mess–exactly how he imagined her to look in the throes of passion.

The words popped unbidden out of his mouth. "You're sexy when you're angry."

The next moment, he deeply regretted being in such proximity with her this late at night. His mind had a tendency to wander and his verbal control very clearly vanished.

Mouth open in apparent readiness to launch into another tirade, she whirled to face him instead. She blinked owlishly at him, her lips still formed around an O of exclamation. "I—what?"

"I didn't say anything," Draco said immediately. In retrospect, that was the worst lie he could have come up with. In his defense, however, his lying skills went decidedly askew when he was around her.

"Yes, you did." Her hand had been gesticulating in that impassioned manner of hers all the reasons why she was disappointed by the International Assembly, but now he had piqued her interest in the worst way—by saying something that was so blatantly false. She advanced on him with an intent expression, obviously determined on forcing the truth out of him. He would have whimpered if he hadn't been so simultaneously turned on and terrified.

"Did you just say I'm sexy when I'm angry?" She made a sound that was somewhere between an amused laugh and scoff of disbelief.

He tried not to squirm in his seat. "Well, it's very late, and my eyesight is clearly going."

She paused in her approach, suddenly looking wary. "Malfoy—Draco, um, you're—you've never—" she broke off, shaking her head in a puzzled way. "That is, I'm seeing someone but we…"

Of course she was. She was always seeing someone. Embarrassment and disappointment warred in the pit of his stomach. "Good lord," he said, making a show of rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "Are you taking me seriously? I'm only just tired. I wanted to stop you before you went on a mad tirade for hours."

His tone was extra snippy because her comment—tinged with unbearable sympathy—hit too close to home. Why had he opened his big fat mouth? For the same reason he always volunteered to be paired up with her on these assignments when he couldn't touch her. Because he had no self-control whatsoever and was a glutton for punishment.

When he lifted his eyes to look at her, he saw that her cheeks were flushed and she bobbed her head too many times before tucking a few flyaway curls behind her ear. She seemed unaccountably flustered by his comment, clearly indicating just how unwelcome it was. "Right. I…sorry, yes. I lose control sometimes, I know." Her words were overlapping one another, they tumbled so quickly from her mouth. "Anyway. Maybe we could—pick this up tomorrow?"

For a moment, he didn't understand. This same horrifying conversation would continue tomorrow?

No; she meant work, of course. As always. She didn't look at him as she ducked her head down and began to stack up the file folders on the table. He let the front two legs of his chair thud back onto the ground and stood. For a moment, he watched her dainty profile and the efficient, brisk movements of her small, slim fingers before hurriedly jerking his eyes away.

"I'm off to bed then." His lame exit line was mostly directed at her back because she had hunched her shoulders up around her ears. It occurred to him that she was embarrassed, but he couldn't imagine the reason. He was the one who had blurted out how he felt about her, how he wished that they could—

Better not go down that route.

He nodded at her back, steeling his resolve and regaining control of himself. It was just a slip of the tongue. It wouldn't happen again.

Especially when it was so clear that she was unreservedly uninterested in him.


	2. Misheard Words and Meanings

Prompt from maimaktes: "Despite what you think, I am completely capable of taking care of myself!"

Word count: 999 (I'm really proud of this number.)

* * *

Draco thought he had outgrown the desire to strangle Muggleborns to death. It turned out that he was right and wrong. It wasn't all Muggleborns. It was one in particular.

This one. Hermione Granger, bane of his existence, thorn in his side, plank in his eye, all around infuriating woman.

"Contrary to what you may think," he said through teeth gritted so hard that he'd be chewing with stumps for molars tomorrow, "I am completely capable of taking care of myself."

It was entirely too much to hope that his short response would shut her up. All she did was tilt her head to the side to regard him in a way that was too sceptical to be flattering. "Well, it's not looking as though you can. Honestly, Malfoy, if you're so frightened of Muggles, then I just don't think that you're the right person for this project."

Draco struggled to keep his ire in check. Despite being the most qualified within the foreign diplomacy program, she was completely incapable of reading between the lines.

"You were so scared the first time we went into Muggle Paris," she continued, utterly unaware of his simmering silence. "You grabbed ahold of my hand."

Draco wanted to bang his head against the wall.

"And you pulled me back from an airplane flying overhead, even though it was thousands of kilometres away." She was ticking off the points on her fingers, the maddening minx. "And then you held onto me like I was your security blanket. You were even shivering. In fear," she emphasised, as though he was having a hard time understanding her points without italics.

Ah, yes. In addition to behaving as though he were a child, she had taken to talking to him as though he were a dunce.

"And then when we were booking into the hotel, you rejected the first reservation because they didn't have rooms next to each other. Then you opted for the last room in this hotel when the Presidential Suite is completely beyond our budget." She sighed, as though she had to deal with someone incomprehensible. "Muggles aren't that scary. Or maybe we need someone to replace you on the team. Maybe Cormac? But he's also a Pureblood, and that's proven to be an unmitigated disaster so far…" she trailed off, mumbling to herself. Her eyes had absently flickered up to the ceiling, as though she were racking her brain someone to replace him. "Honestly, why did you volunteer for this program if you can't even stand to be around Muggles?"

He inhaled deeply, running one hand through his hair. "Just so—just so we're clear, what exactly did you think I said about going on this trip?"

Her brow furrowed in thought. "Er—you said that you needed my help in guiding you around Muggles. That you were afraid of them. And that you didn't want an international incident."

He pressed his fingers to the center of his forehead for a moment. A deep breath for patience turned into five. His left eye was even beginning to twitch. "Alright, stop. You must have terribly selective hearing because what I actually said was that I'd love it if you could show me around your world. That I wanted to fit into your life. And that I wanted this opportunity to show you how I've changed."

She blinked owlishly up at him. "That's what I just said. But your actions have shown me that you clearly can't be around Muggles without freaking out." The expression on her face was concerned and a bit sad. "Maybe—it's just too sudden?"

She had been standing in front of him, but now she moved away and toyed with a pen on the table. She didn't look at him, as though she were distancing herself from him already. For no good reason at all.

He had had enough.

"I was trying to woo you in the most romantic city in the world!" The words were ripped out of Draco in the most unromantic, forthright manner that ever a declaration was uttered in Paris.

"Woo—?" Her lashes fluttered. "Me?" The syllable came out on a high-pitched squeak.

"Obviously," he said in a stiff drawl that would have made Professor Snape proud. Suddenly, he felt exactly like the dunce that she was treating him. Had he somehow misread the signs back when they were preparing for this trip and the year before that when they had bantered so flirtatiously with one another? He had misread everything and now she thought he was a simpleton who saw murdering Muggles behind every lamppost.

"Oh," she said and paused. She shifted awkwardly as he looked out the window, wondering why no parliament of owls could conveniently choose this time to batter down the glass to bury him in parchment. When he looked back at her, she was tucking a stray piece of curl behind her ear. "Um. I mean—really?" she said on a awkward laugh before launching into a torrent of speech. "So you aren't really afraid of Muggles and the cars and everything? Because I know they can be a bit much and—"

The adorable flush on her cheeks decided him. He knew what it meant, had watched for it every time he had teased her back in their offices. That was when he should have made his move instead of waiting for the perfect time when they would be abroad and away. Note to self: stop planning and go for the moment.

"So, wait, does that mean—"

She got no further because that was when he pounced, crossing the distance between them. He clasped one arm around her waist, cupped her jaw with the other hand, and kissed her. Long, lingering, and full of pent-up desire—he let her have it all.

"Oh," she said when he finally lifted his head. His eyes tracked the movement of her wet, pouty lips.

"Yes, oh," he said before bending his head to kiss her some more.


	3. Laundry Day

Prompt from kgosigadirebone: "Is that my shirt?"

Word count: 1520

* * *

Draco's eyes almost bugged out of his head when he opened the Head dorm room to find a half-naked Hermione Granger dashing about in a mad flurry.

In the half a second that it took him to keep from swallowing his tongue, he quickly realised that she wasn't naked, per se. She was perfectly dressed on top, but her legs from the mid-thigh down was completely bared. She wasn't even wearing socks or shoes.

Even though she had buttoned up the too-big dress shirt right up to the collar, she gripped the lapels of the shirt still tighter together when she caught sight of him. Her eyes were larger than he had ever seen them, and she made a high-pitched sound like a strangled mouse. "W-what are you doing back so soon? I thought you were at practice!"

He had never realised how provocative a male dress shirt on a petite girl could be, but now he could never not know this. Through the fine fabric, he could make out the shape of her body clearly delineated by the light thrown in through the windows. It was a shape he had never had occasion to see, not with Hermione Granger always wearing more clothes than the situation demanded. He had begun to think that she didn't have a body under the lumpy sweaters she favoured when not in class.

"Can you—stop staring?" she said almost hysterically, swatting at him across the distance.

Draco cleared his throat. Several times. With effort, he managed to avert his eyes. Who knew Granger had such nice looking, silky-smooth legs? "Is that my shirt?" he asked and was embarrassed to find that his question came out like a croak rather than his usual debonair drawl.

She probably didn't notice since she was too busy trying to shield the bottom half of herself with the sofa. It also wasn't a good time to notice how the shirt ended only an inch above her knees. With her half-squatting behind the sofa with nary a regard for concealing her rear, he could see quite far up the back of her thigh and he had to conceal a groan under the guise of a cough.

"Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go into your room—but all my clothes are gone!" The hand not wrinkling his lapels to death gestured angrily in the air. In her irritation, her fuzzy curls kept falling over her face and she kept pushing it behind her shoulder. "I just don't understand it! Do you know anything about this?"

Draco couldn't quite help the chuckle that slipped out, but he managed to school his features back into deadpan nonchalance when she glared at him. "All your clothes? Even the ones you wear to bed?" Did prudish little Granger sleep in the nude?

That was—interesting.

She turned an annoyed look on him. "The moment I changed out of my—the moment my clothes went into the laundry basket, they immediately disappeared. Summoning didn't work, so I—I went into your room to have a look, but it seems that it's just me." Ire made her draw herself taller and aim a suspicious glare at him. "Was this your doing, Draco Malfoy?"

Draco snorted. "And just how was I supposed to go into your room? All Hogwarts knows that boys can't just enter the girls' dorms. Surely, you're not implying that I wanted anything in your room." His voice went up on a slightly derisive note and she flushed in response.

He couldn't help but let his eyes trail down once more. Having stopped huddling down like a cornered animal, her shirt was now pulled across her chest. Possibly, she had no idea that she had pulled on one of his summer shirts, one made up in lightweight voile that was semi-sheer. Under dress robes for sitting in class on hot days, it was hard to fault its mild transparency. In the privacy of a secluded room, on a girl without undergarments, it was pure provocation.

Heavens have mercy. He did not need to know that he could make out the pucker of her nipples through the fabric.

"It's clear what's happened here," he said, shoving any unwanted thoughts to the back of his mind and jerking himself back to the present. "How many times have I told you to just leave the house-elves alone? How many times have your friends and the professors told you? Now you've got the house-elves rising in revolt against you."

She half-rose from her crouch, looking disconcerted. "What do you mean?"

"It takes really extreme circumstances for them to revolt against doing your laundry, which is clearly what's happened here."

"Can they do that?" she asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "I thought they were incapable of rebellion."

He nodded knowingly. "The only time I've seen this happen was when my father forbade them from cleaning the library after a precious artifact went missing. This is why I told you to just leave them alone. This is why everyone just leaves them to it."

She cocked her head to the side disbelievingly. Her mouth opened to launch into more questions, but he forestalled her with a gesture at her half-dressed figure. "So, what do you plan to do here? Wear this to class?"

At his words, she turned her back on him and started to cast spells on the throw on the couch, clearly what she had been about before he came in the room. All to no avail. She growled in frustration. "None of the fabrics or sheets or blankets even transfigure!" She sounded on the verge of tears.

He rolled his eyes. "Naturally not. Don't you think that the castle has more sense than to allow its furniture and things to be transfigured at will by its inhabitants?"

Her lips were pressed down in a flat line as though bracing herself from falling apart. She nodded a few times before peering back up at him through her lashes. "I know, I just thought I'd give it a go. I—even tried transfiguring your shirt, but it didn't work. I mean, I would have returned it!" she said hurriedly to forestall any comments he would have made. "I'm going to be so late."

"My clothes have spells against enchantment woven into their fabric." He found his lips lifting in a familiar smirk. "And they come when summoned by its owner."

When he raised his wand, he was amused to find her eyes widening in horror. She ducked immediately so that she was crouched behind the sofa, with only two eyes glaring out at him. "Don't you dare, Draco Malfoy!"

He lowered his wand. "Relax, Granger," he said. "Keep the shirt. It looks better on you anyway." Another wave of his wand and one of his robes came flying out of the Head Boy's room into his hand. He tossed it in her direction and she caught it one-handed, though most of it covered her head. "Here. I'll go and speak to the house-elves."

"You will?" The cloak muffled her voice but couldn't quite smother the surprise in her tone as she pulled it off her head. She looked even more rumpled, even more like she had just arisen from bed in a state of debauched dishevelment. Where her coiffure had always been more than a bit crude, now, with the context of her semi-nudity, it seemed appropriate and even alluring.

He sought for brusqueness. "I'm not a complete monster. Despite wanting to 'keep the house-elves in a state of subjugation, suppression, and slavery.'"

She nodded, her expression softening as his sour pointedness completely passed her over. Her eyes were huge brown pansies in her face, awash with surprised gratitude. "That's—that's very kind of you. I would appreciate that very much, thank you."

"Anything to please."

His reward for civility was the really quite pretty smile of relief she beamed at him across the room as she quickly pulled on his cloak. He watched for a moment in silence and, when the hem of his shirt rose alarmingly high on a long expanse of silky smooth thigh, he turned and abruptly left the room.

The door closed with a loud click behind him. For a moment, he stood there with his back against the door.

That—hadn't gone anywhere like how he had intended.

A famous prank on Hermione Granger? Check. Embarrass the most prudish know-it-all Hogwarts had ever known? Check again. Strike her where it hurt, in her idiotic crusade that went against all notions of Pureblood ideals? Double check.

Then what had happened?

A flash of leg, some shadowy hints of nudity, and he had completely lost his nerve.

Well, that just wouldn't do at all.

Draco pushed off the door and raked back his hair. He took a deep breath and straightened his own robes. So he had discovered the fact that the most annoying girl in the world didn't look heinous under her clothes—or in his clothes, for that matter. That didn't mean anything.

Nothing at all.

And he would do well to remember that.


End file.
